Mother Jones -Newly minted Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner was elected
on a platform of bringing criminal justice reform to the office and
attacking mass incarceration. Now Krasner, a former civil rights
attorney, seems to be making good on his promise. He issued a
remarkable memo
to his assistant DAs that swaps the office’s traditional tough-on-crime
approach in favor of one intended both to reduce the number of people
in city jail and prisons, and to shorten the duration of their stays.
The memo instructs prosecutors to cease charging certain
offenses entirely—including possession of marijuana, regardless of the
weight carried, and prostitution in some circumstances. It also
encourages assistant DAs to punish people with house arrest, probation,
and alternative sentencing much more frequently, and to seek shorter
probation sentences. Krasner’s subordinates must now get permission
before seeking sentences of more than six months for a minor probation
violation, or more than one year for a more serious one.
Krasner’s memo also directs prosecutors to offer plea deals
with shorter sentences than suggested by state sentencing guidelines,
and to get his permission before offering more-punitive deals—a crucial
change, as more than 90 percent of criminal convictions nationwide are
the result of a plea.
1 comment:
These are good changes. I just retired from the practice of law. Too many times prosecutors took the attitude "the longer the sentence, the more accomplished" or "the more sent to jail, the more accomplished" or "the more convictions, the more accomplished."
The cultural mess that has resulted is not just wrong, but unforgivable.
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